Pikes had never been popular before so i assume the devs paid no attention to its OPness
This is incorrect. There's always been a reach escalation in the game, the longest weapons available have always been popular. There's a reason why the long voulge lost its sideswings, for example. The pike has been nerfed so many times I severely doubt the "devs pay no attention" to it.
Some of you say archers are the answer, you have not been in these battles and do not know what your talking about, with their heavy armor the arrows do very little to stop them, and they have some sheilders protecting them. We would need to have more archers than they have people for that strategy to be at all effective.
Actually, yes, we have been in these battles. Your archers are more effective than you give them credit for, they can shut down certain avenues of attack simply by being able to shoot at them. A shield on a teammate can only protect so far around him, let alone people
behind him, particularly when projectiles are coming from above.
Any type of infantry is also innefective, the second u put your gaurd down to attack the guy in front of you there are 30 people behind and around him who are in range to stab you and can do so because they can magically stab you through their team mates.
Plus as i said they have sheilders at the front so downblock doesnt work at all...
Yes, pikemen have
teammates with them.
...you can block the pike stabs and get overheaded by their steel picks or whatever they use.
So, it's you, then, that hasn't been in these battles and doesn't know what you're talking about? We've never fielded steel picks. But to your point...
In all the battles ive been in almost all of our infantry was sheild infantry, we form a sheild wall and attack their mob of infantry infront of us, getting close does absolutely nothing. As i said the second you drop your shield your open to being attacked by almost anyone on their team given they mostly have pikes. Not only that the guys in the front have sheids. So basically you open up and hit someoens sheild, only to be simultaneously stabbed to death by 5-6 people. If pikers couldnt stab thru team mates or stab people who are 5ft infront of them with a 30 ft weapon it would be better but w/e.
Right, so since you guys have mainly one type of melee fighter and we use multiple kinds of melee classes in conjunction, one component of the synergy from our variety of playstyles we use together is broken and too strong. You keep saying that since the pikemen are near their teammates, they're impossible to attack. You're essentially arguing that teamwork is overpowered, and you know, that's true. Work as a team and you'll come out on top. You can't complain that our teamplay is overpowered simply because you're not as diverse, that is an issue you can deal with!
And you can't expect to have a group of entirely shielders and beat a group comprised of shielders
and pikemen. This is obviously a simplified example, as both sides have multiple different kinds melee weaponry being fielded.
Realism, as well, is just not an argument that works. Addressing things from a balance angle, things like jump attacks, is a fair discussion to have, but from a balance point of view, there is a reason (balance and game engine limitations) why these weapons stab through teammates and can spin while thrusting to hit people close to them. One major example is that you can walk through the shaft of a pike when it isn't thrust out in an attack. Instead of having to go around or knock the weapon out of the way, you just downblock and walk right through it, or are close enough that it glances and move
straight through a physical object to reach the guy using the weapon. This is a double edged sword, you see: goes through teammates, enemies go through it. It's an intangible object in the game, whereas in reality it would be a solid pole made of wood with a sharp metal point at the tip.
Chaos is the only clan really doing this right now, but lljk will probabbly follow suit and it seems hospitaller is also making pikes from what i heard about yesterdays battle. If we ever end up fighting the Europeans they will probably adopt the strategy too, or they may do it on their own unless they don't believe what has been said here.
Long spears and pikes have always been prevalent in strategus and will continue to do so, we aren't an isolated incident of one strategy being overpowered; obviously if it truly was overpowered it would surely be ubiquitous. But wait! A lot of clans have pikemen. The fact that one group is deficient in the use of them doesn't mean implicitly that the pike is an overpowered weapon. It's a similar situation to the old days of strat before the slew of archery nerfs, when the escalation was tilted towards domination based on the amount of ranged players on one side. If you can't cope, or can't get closer to parity with the amount of archers you can field, you get shot up. The difference nowadays is that there are far more counters to pikemen than their are to archers, the pike has a lot of disadvantages ranged weapons do not have and can't do well on their own like they can.
And without addressing any "historical evidence" you brought up in that other thread, this is a game and a fantasy world. It creates its own history.
Pikes are strong, but not unbeatable.